"Please! Someone help!" they heard.
Celestia and Katia had just come down the stone from Dragonsreach to prepare to depart for Ivarstead. Celestia had figured that a quick browse through the marketplace back down in the Plains District of Whiterun might benefit them if they happen to come across any essential supplies that they might need. when they hear a woman hysterically cry for help in the street. They looked up to see one of the Nord merchants that had greeted them in the market place coming around Gildergreen into sight. Celestia recognized her as Carlotta Valentina She was noticeably fatigued and she appeared to be injured as black and blue spots could be seen all over her arms and face. Celestia and Katia looked on with concern and then simultaneously gave a deep sigh and looked at each other with unamused looks.
"We can't get a break can we? Finding your sister is definitely gonna take a little while if this kind of thing keeps happening to us," Katia asked in a deadpan tone.
"Oh well, we might as well see what is going on. Let's just hope it doesn't take up too much of our time though. We are falling behind Luna more and more every second," replied Celestia calmly. "Luna has always been a quick paced mare for her size."
Carlotta noticed Celestia and Katia and ran right up to them with a look of desperation on her face. Celestia felt a tang of sorrow and sympathy by how injured the woman looked. Her red dress was dirty and ripped in multiple places. Big spots of blood stained parts of her dress. Her undergarments were clearly visible as many of the pieces appeared to be ripped off forcefully. She had many welts and bruises on her face from whatever that she had recently gone through. Celestia knew that she would have to try to help as much as she could.
"Come Katia, we should try to help her," Celestia whispered.
"All right. You win," Katia replied. "Let's help her out."
"Miss Carlotta. What happened? Who did this to you?"
"Princess Celestia, thank Mara. You have to help me please," Carlotta choked out as tears ran down her bruised face. "My daughter and I were on our way to the meeting point on the road down to the south where one of the traders of Falkreath sell their produce to me. But when Mila and I got there......there was so much blood. So much blood everywhere."
"What happened next?" Celestia asked stoicly.
Carlotta eyes widened with fear as she started to tremble violently began crying into her hands. Celestia gave her a hug and allowed her a moment to calm down. When she was finally able to look at Celestia in the eyes again, she continued her story.
"Please continue Carlotta," Celestia asked. "Tell us exactly what happened."
"A group of bandits appeared out of nowhere and just started attacking Mila and I. I tried to fend them off but...."
Carlotta seemed to be choked up again and was unable to respond. She then sobbed into her hands as Celestia observed her for clues about the incident.
Celestia looked at her tattered, blood stained clothes, her injuries, and was able to put two and two together about what the bandits almost did to her. She could tell that it traumatized her heavily Celestia would have to be gentle with her if she was going to get any answers. The Princess then held up an armored hand to signal her to stop talking.
"I understand Carlotta. You don't have to talk anymore," she replied kindly
"How in the world did you escape?" Katia asked.
"I-I don't know entirely myself," Carlotta replied. "All I remember is grabbing a sharp shard of wood and then running back to Whiterun covered in blood."
"Where's Mila?"
"Th-They took her," she whispered while a torrent of tears was still coming down her pale face. "To White River Watch."
"And where would that be?" Celestia asked stoicly.
"Down the Eastern road towards Windhelm. Its just off the road right across the bridge. But why?"
"We will get Mila back Carlotta, I promise," Celestia replied.
A record scratched in Katia's head.
"Wait. We will?"
"Yes Katia, we will."
"From an entire gang of heavily armed thugs, bandits, and highwaymen?"
"I don't think we should have too many problems with them."
After instructing her to go to Dragonsreach, Celestia and Katia quickly went over to the medicinal store to stock up on some potions before heading back out. They bought a number of extra healing, magicka, and stamina potions to add to their supply just in case they ran into any trouble. Celestia noticed Katia ogling a large potion with a white substance of unknown use and origin. The neck of the bottle was dressed by some kind of red twine with what looked like a green scale. Being slightly nervous about its appearance, Celestia asked Arcadia about it and found out that it was a powerful invisibility potion that she had bought from an Orc trader in Cyrodiil. She said that his family was always shady, starting with his great grandfather who evaded capture from the Imperial Legion for years until he was finally executed. Katia found that explanation to be familiar, but she didn't know why.
She relented to Katia's enthusiasm and bought the potion for her, much to Katia's sheer delight. After that, they made a quick visit to the blacksmith shop called Warmaiden near the front gates of the city. The owner of the shop Adrienne and her husband Ulfberth War-Bear were more than eager to help Celestia and Katia obtain andy supplies that they might need. Ulfberth gave Celestia a specialized whetstone to keep her sword sharp, a book on heavy armor crafting, and a dozen enchanted arrows designed for emergency situations only. After thanking Ulfberth They made their way back down to the city gates where the guards there finally greeted her with respect and let her pass on through.
They kept up a fast pace in their stride going down the road as they tried to reach White River Watch as soon as possible. Katia placed her new gift from Celestia in her new teacher's backpack for safe keeping as she didn't trust herself to not accidentally destroy it just by holding it.
"Thank you for that," Katia said happily. "I think that's the first actual gift that I have gotten in years that wasn't given to me as a charity thing."
"Well, I was happy to get it for you. I'm assuming you like invisibility potions a lot?"
"They've helped me in the past and they remind me of the one that Quill-oh" Katia started as she stopped.
Celestia halted her walking as she saw Katia staring into nothing with a distant mournful expression.
"She gave you one of those didn't she?"
"Celestia....I think this is the exact one that was stolen from me back in Cyrodil by that Orc asshole Garug Gro-Upp!" she exclaimed.
"Are you sure? From what I understand, most potions here look alike."
"I'm positive! The scratch at the mouth, the surface crack at the bottom, and the green brown scale tied by a red string! This is definitely Quill-Weave's!"
"I wonder how it ended up in the hands of an Orc trader?" Celestia wondered aloud.
"How much you willing to bet that Orc probably kept it around in his family and never sold it? Probably just to mock me." she replied angrily.
Celestia could tell that this must have weighed on her mind for a long time.
"Well, you have it back now don't you? You should be glad!"
"I guess...but what I don't understand is why Garug's family sold it after all this time to a random merchant shop in Skyrim?"
"Random chance?" Celestia guessed.
In another realm outside of Mundus, a certain Daedric princess of Moonshadow giggled mischievously as she looked in on the conversation that they were having.
"At this point, I don't care. I'm just glad I have it back after this long. That skeever ass Garug can rot in Ashpit for all I care."
Celestia and Katia soon made it to the White River Bridge where they quickly crossed and passed by the raging waterfall that would have drowned out any potential conversations that the girls would have had. Both metaphorically and literally. After making it to the other side, they came across a steep path that led up the side of the mountain for a relatively short distance. She looked up and about a hundred feet up was a second ridge overlooking the whole valley. The figure of a man appeared suddenly which caused Celestia to pull Katia up against the rocks to avoid being seen. She then lead Katia up and around the dirt path up the mountain where the path seemed to make a wide turn to the left where the entrance into White River Watch was. Celestia shifted her fuzzy white ears around for any sounds and motioned to Katia to remain quiet and stay up against the wall. She could hear two men at separate locations on the ridge shifting around.
Just twenty feet away was a sizable boulder on the other side of the path big enough to obscure their position. They quickly ducked behind it before they could be seen to get the proper locations of the bandits guarding the entrance to the caves. One of the guards they could see on a raised platform. He seemed to be carrying a large long bow for sniping potential victims on the road below. Katia pointed off to the far left where they could see the figure of another guard watching the entrance. If they tried to just approach, they would likely be seen and Mila inside might be put at serious risk. She would have to come up with a distraction.
Katia reluctantly pulled out her precious invisibility potion and offered it to Celestia, but she pushed her hand down and shook her head with a smile. Her face carried all of the expression that Katia needed to know. Keep it, I have another idea. Celestia looked around and found a small, but sizable rock. She ducked down to ignite her horn and let the stone be engulfed by the same golden glow. Katia watched her levitate the stone back and around the ridge where it was directly behind the bandit. With a soft grunt, her horn slightly brightened and the stone rocketed towards the bandit and impacted against his head. The stone exploded as the bandit cried out in pain before falling to the ground dead. The archer turned around and came over to where the other bandit was knocked down, which gave Celestia the moment to slide out from behind the rock and approach her target. The bandit kept scanning the road below, but couldn't find the culprit of his partner's death. As he was continuing to search, he suddenly felt himself being shoved off the cliff and fell thirty feet with a scream before dying upon impacting a boulder at the bottom.
Celestia turned back to see Katia staring at her with disbelief. Her pupils shrank to the size of pinheads.
'You're having a total lady boner right now are you?' her mental voice asked.
She just simply responded with a barrage of rapid fire nods.
'You're not going to pass out again are you?' another internal voice asked.
Katia responded by rapidly shaking her head.
'...Are you having thoughts about-'
"WHAT? NO!" Katia snapped at the voices as her face turned red.
"Shall we proceed inside then? After relieving these guards of their belongings of course." Celestia asked Katia with a small grin and a raised eyebrow.
She responded again with rapid fire nods before shaking herself out of her shocked state and helped Celestia carefully loot the immediate area for any useful supplies that they might come across.
The first things they pocketed were various food items placed on the table right by where the first bandit was stationed. A giant cheese wheel and a few vegetables. Right by where the first bandit fell was a small chest that carried a small bag of coins, a banded iron shield, and two medium sized potions. They didn't acquire much from looting the two bandits that she had slain.
They then made their way inside the cavern where they found an old man sitting in the chair supposedly guarding the entrance. Celestia tried to sneak, but it didn't take her two steps before the guard turned his head toward the entrance.
"Hodalf? Is that you?" the old man asked.
Celestia and Katia looked at each other with confusion before slowly getting a closer look at the old man. What struck her strange about the old man was not his body, but more his eyes. They appeared to be red as blood instead of a typical white.
Celestia motioned to Katia to remain quiet while to figure this out.
'He must be completely blind' she thought. 'I might as well use this situation to my advangtage.'
She ignited her horn again and a spot on her throat glowed for a few seconds. She then began to speak to the old man. But the voice that came out was not one that Katia expected.
"Yeah, its just me," Celestia replied to the old man in a gruff masculine voice.
"Boss was looking for you. Said he'd be up at the summit with that Whiterun girl. Better not keep him waiting."
Celestia deactivated the spell she put on herself and motioned for Katia to carefully move in tandem with her own. They made their way past the blind man and up two flights of stairs into a bigger chamber inside the cavern. An entire section of the cavern floor was covered in bedrolls which lead them to the impression that this chamber was used as some kind of sleeping quarters for the bandits. At an upper level, they could see two bandits talking to each other. One a female wearing mage robes, and the other light archer garb. Celestia could just barely make out their conversation.
"So you in?" the archer bandit asked.
"....Yeah, we can't have that rheumy-eyed fool as our watchman, even if he is Hajvarr's uncle. Time we dealt with both of them." the female mage bandit replied.
"We strike tonight at dusk, be ready."
"What about the city girl?" the bandit asked.
"Hajvarr was planning on keeping her here as a pet, but we might as well take the opportunity to sell her to the bandit tribe at Embershard Mine. The profit might make up for Hodalf's blunder with that Khajiit caravan."
"Risaad is supposed to be the best in his business."
"Regardless, we need to move forward with our plans. Just be ready."
Celestia enraged by the thought of them so callously talking about selling a child and treating her like a toy, quickly calculated a plan in her head to take out the two bandits.
"Watch me carefully Katia if you want to learn how to properly use certain weapons in combat ," Celestia whispered to Katia.
"Yeah?"
"Lesson one," she replied as she pulled out her bow and an arrow.. "Aim at the least armored target or the target that might be the most problematic in a close quarters fight"
She aimed her bow at the mage on the second level.
"And fire," she said as she let go of the string and sent the arrow flying directly into the back of the bandit mage. The mage grunted and then collapsed against the floor of the cave. The bandit turned around in the direction of where the arrow came from just as Katia made the mistake of accidentally tripping over Celestia and out of the shadows.
"Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in-" the bandit started.
Then out of nowhere, Katia jumped with a quick squeak and expelled a giant fireball that hit the bandit and burned him alive before falling to the ground dead.
Celestia lowered her bow and looked at Katia with a look of surprise and confusion.
"Did you do that?"
"Yeah...I think so..." Katia replied nervously.
"Good job!"
"Oh..thanks".
"Let's move on shall we?"
Celestia and Katia looted the chamber, adding to their sack of jewels and coins. On one of the bookshelves, Celestia found a few old books she pocketed that she figured would prove useful in the future before moving up the next pathway. At the top, she found a scientific station of some kind with a mortar and pestle in the middle. Many various empty potion bottles were laid about. One bottle appeared to be full that sat on the table right next to the station.
"I'm assuming these stations are used for creating potions?"
"Yeah, its an alchemy lab. The guild back in Anvil had one, but this one looks...well a bit more advanced."
"Equestria has something similar, but a bit more sophisticated than even this. This one reminds me of the prototype models we used twenty years ago."
"Really? How advanced is Equestria?"
"To put it in perspective, not to insult your home, but compared to Equestria, Tamriel still seems to be going through a primitive Medieval era. Not one unlike my sister and I went through a 1000 years ago."
"Wow," she simply replied. "Do you think....it might be possible for me to see it? Ya know....Equestria?
Celestia was silent for a few moments before giving the nervous Katia a big smile.
"Of course. If that i what you want," she replied. "Now that my previous one has graduated, I think you would make a fine "faithful student" Katia.
Katia gave Celestia the biggest smile she had seen from her since she arrived in Skyrim. She looked back to find a large cage hanging from the ceiling with a corpse that appeared to be carrying a bag of gemstones.
"Hey, maybe we can try getting those for our loot bag!" Katia exclaimed enthusiastically as she began to run towards the cliff in an attempt to jump over to the cage.
"Katia wait! I don't think that's such a good-" Celestia started but was already too late as Katia began soaring through the air. For a moment, it had looked like that she was going to reach the cage. Instead....she fell down to the bottom level on her face like a rock.
-a good idea" Celestia finished.
Celestia winced as Katia groaned in pain and her arms comedically began to twitch from the fall.
She ran back down and helped Katia on to her back before quickly taking a health potion out of her pack and shoved the bottle between Katia's lips to heal her wounds. She seemed to down the bottle in only a few seconds as she slowly stood back up after stumbling a couple of times.
"That was dumb. Just a tad," Katia said dryly.
"Yeah just a tad," Celestia retorted humorously. "Can you walk?"
"I think so. Let's go get Mila out of here!" Katia said confidently.
"Yes, let's".
Celestia and Katia went through the next passageway and found an even larger chamber than the previous one straight ahead. It had another passageway leading even further up. The most noticeable thing in the room was the large cage that was placed off to the left. Two bandits were in the center of the room talking to each other. One was a bulky orc and the other was another female mage bandit. Two more bandits were sitting in chairs up at the second level of the chamber. This time with how close they were, they were able to heat the bandits very clearly.
"You think it will work?" the female bandit asks.
"Course not. Dogs I can train. But a half-starved wolf? Not a chance," the gruff orc replied.
"....Right. We'd be lucky if it didn't rip our throats out".
'If we try to sneak by, they'll probably spot us instantly. If we try to run headfirst into battle, we might be overwhelmed. I still don't have my magic back that nulls all damage from normal weapons, so I can't take any unnecessary risks. Mila might be hurt if they are alerted to us. What do we do?' she thought as she tried to look around the darkness of the cavern.
Katia observed the immediate area and tried to come up with anything that might help the two of them get past the guards.
'Hey Katia, try your Night Eye move! That might help show you something useful that might be hiding in the dark!' one of her voices suggested.
'Well, its worth a shot' Katia thought as she closed her eyes and concentrated. She then opened them and was able to see every detail in the cave just as if there was daylight on the inside.
Off to the right side of the passageway wall, she spotted what looked like a pull chain of some kind. She looked around the cave trying to find whatever it might activate until her eyes landed on the cage.
'I wonder?' Katia thought as she reached for the pull chain and pulled on it.
"Wait Katia!" Celestia whispered before seeing the steel door of the cage open. Out came what looked like a large one like the one the bandits had just been describing.
The wolf was panting heavily and looked as if it hadn't eaten for weeks. While the bandits were distracted, the wolf pounced on the female mage and ripped her throat out. The orc barely had enough time to react before it turned on him too. Unfortunately for the wolf, after the wolf bit him a few times, the orc pulled out his warhammer and knocked the wolf away. Another one of the guards at the top who came down to see what the commotion was about was unfortunate enough to run into the wolf who chomped down on his throat and started eating him alive. Celestia shielded Katia's eyes and held her as the grisly scene began to unfold. The orc bandit gave a mighty swing with his warhammer in an attempt to save his comrade which caused the wolf to fly through the air and impact against the wall dead.
While the orc looked at his injuries, Celestia rushed out of the shadows while the orc was distracted and pierced the orc through the back with her Elven sword. The orc simply groaned as she forcefully pulled out her blade and allowed the bandit's body to fall. The other bandit saw this and tried to rush her. Celestia simply dodged out of the way and threw one of her new throwing axes at the bandit. It sliced into his back, severing his spine and killing him instantly.
"I still can't get over how awesome you are," Katia said with widened eyes and a blank face.
"Well thank you. Its been a while, but I remember a few of my old tricks," she replied.
"I'm glad then that you are on my side then."
They went up the second pathway and found that it sharply turned left to reveal an opening to the outside. As the duo went through the opening to the outside, they heard a small sound. It was the muffled scream of a little girl.
On the outside, they came on to a section of the cave that was fashioned into a watchtower for the bandits. Further down to the cliff, they spotted a wooden platform with a few various pieces of furniture. In one of the chairs sat a large man in a jagged green armor they assumed to be the chief of the bandit tribe everybody in the cave had been calling Hajvarr. Off to the corner of the balcony, Celestia and Katia could see Mila bound to one of the railings, gagged, and blindfolded.
"Can you use your magic?" Celestia whispered into Katia's right ear.
"I can try, but its still a little glitchy for me," she whispered back.
"That's alright. Just circle around the rocks to the left while I catch Hajvarr off guard from behind."
"Gotcha." Katia replied as she pulled out her Skyforge Steel Axe and carefully navigated around the rocks.
Celestia pulled out her bow and strung and arrow. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out one of the smaller weak poisons and drenched the head of the arrow with a few drops of the red liquid before placing the bottle back in her bag. She carefully aimed for a weak point on Hajvarr's armor until she found a spot on his armor between his shoulder and his forearm where the armor seemed to part. She pulled it back a little further and then released. The arrow soared through the air and pierced through Hajvarr's arm. Tha bandit chief shrieked in pain as the poison began to flow through his veins. Whil he was stunned and grabbing his arm in pain, Celestia took the opportunity to rush over to the table and slide across it hooves first. The moment she reached the other side, she launched Hajvarr into the railing of the balcony with a powerful buck of her hooves. Hajvarr impacted against the railing and was clearly in even more pain afterwards. Celestia pulled out her shield as Hajvarr recovered for a moment from her constant barrage and turned around to finally get a good look at her.
"I don't know what the hell you are horse woman, but you are going to die slowly and painfully for that, right after I get a king's ransom from that pretty crown of yours" he said as he pulled out his warhammer and started swinging it.
Celestia managed to dodge most of Hajvarr's attacks and even stun him for a spilt second a couple of times to prevent him from using a powerful strike.
Off to where Mila was bound, Katia was awkwardly using her axe to cut Mila's ropes. They were soon cut by the sharp steel and Katia was able to help Mila get the blindfold off of her.
"M-Miss Katia?"
"Hi there! The cavalry is here. We are here to bring you home Mila!" Katia said encouragingly.
Mila just jumped into Katia's arms and started sobbing tears of happiness and relief into Katia's robes. Katia slowly carried her away from the battle and over to the mouth of the cave where she continued to hold Mila as she continued to cry her eyes out.
"I was so.....scared." Mila choked out. "I was afraid I was never going to see mommy again."
'Offer to buy her something sweet when you get back to town. It might make her feel better when she gets back with her mom one of Katia' voices suggested
"Burn yourself with puns! It might make her laugh!"
"That last one is dumb, like REALLY dumb, but the first one might work. I'll get her five sweet or more sweet rolls if it will help her mood," she said to herself.
She then looked over to the sight of the battle and found Celestia had been doing fairly well, but she was too much on the defensive from Hajvarr's enchanted warhammer. She would have to quickly finish up the battle before her stamina runs out.
Celestia then quickly came up with an idea as she stayed open for a moment and allowed Hajvarr to attempt to finally kill her.
"Finally you're mine now bitch! Maybe I'll get a pretty price for your corpse!"
Celestia quickly rolled behind him where she kicked in the back of his legs and caused him to collapse to his knees. He unfortunately saw this coming and just shifted his body to block Celestia's next attack.
Noticing she was in trouble, Katia focused her magicka and conjured an unstable fireball she meant to throw at the bandit. .....If she didn't hold it for too long and and ended up burning herself.
"Oooh! Oooh! Oooh!" she exclaimed with pain as she tossed the fireball between both hands like a deadly game of hot potato. "Hot! hot! hot! hot! hot!"
She then randomly chucked the fireball in Hajvarr and Celestia's direction to get as she prayed it might help Celestia and not blow her off the side of the mountain. Her prayers seemed to be answered as the fireball detonated after coming into contact with the ground, causing Hajvarr to fall backwards on to the rocks of the cliffside. He dropped his warhammer as he was stunned once again. With a quick movement, Celestia slammed her shield onto Hajvarr's head and then slit his throat, finally bringing him down.
She remained tense for a moment before she finally relaxed and walked back over to where Mila and Katia were sitting.
"I am glad that is over with," Celestia chuckled. "Is Mila unharmed Katia?"
"Yeah, I think she's a little shaken up, but I think she's going to be okay. She just needs to get back with her mom, eat a few sugary goodies, and she should be right as rain!" Katia replied.
"I think we can do that before heading back out again. I need a few moments to rest anyway. But we may have to run most of the way around the mountain afterwards if we are going to make it to Luna on time. As long as there are no more delays."
"I'm really sorry that I couldn't help out much during all of that. You must think I'm pretty useless," Katia stated sadly.
"Not at all. You took Mila out of harm's way and you provided me with the opening I desperately needed to end off that fight quickly." Celestia replied graciously. "Though maybe a few fighting lessons in the near future wouldn't be too objectionable."
"Yeah, that might help,"
As Celestia began to walk back into the cave to make their way down to the road below once again, Celestia could suddenly feel a powerful magical presence calling to her back over towards the balcony. She turned around to scan her immediate surroundings. While she was holding Mila's hand to keep her close by, Katia noticed that Celestia was looking around as if there was another threat headed their way.
"Are we still in trouble?"
"No, I don't believe so..." Celestia absent mindedly replied as she pulled out her sword again and approached the balcony again.
As she came back around to the platform, she noticed a large bronze chest that was obscured by the rock.
"I believe I found a treasure chest of sorts," Celestia said.
"A treasure chest? Awesome! Let's see what's in it!"
As she stepped down on to the wooden platform, she could suddenly hear unintelligible whispering coming from inside the chest. Keeping her sword ready, she unhooked the latch and slowly opened the lid.
Inside laid a wild assortment of weapons, gold, and potions. As she wanted to save on space, she just settled for pocketing the gold, potions, and jewelry and jewels for the time being. But the strangest thing in the chest wasn't any of the weapons or jewels. It was a large triacontadigonal (or 32-sided shape) crystal sphere of some kind. It radiated an enormous amount of magical energy. She apprehensively picked it up and began to observe it trying to figure out what it might be. Katia walked up with Mila as she finally saw the strange orb.
"What's that? Some kind of weird giant gemstone?" Katia asked.
"It kinda looks like a big quartz like the ones Miss Gray-Mane brings in for her jewelry sometimes," Mila said.
"I'm not.....entirely sure," Celestia replied as she turned the orb.
Then all of a sudden, Celestia's eyes were blinded by a white light and she could hear the booming voice of a commanding woman radiating throughout her mind.
"A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON! WAIT.....YOU I MUST ADMIT AREN'T THE ONE I WAS EXPECTING."
"Who are you? Where are you?" Celestia asked.
"I AM MERIDIA. LADY OF THE COLORED ROOMS. IT IS...PLEASANT TO FINALLY MAKE YOUR ACQUAINTANCE PRINCESS CELESTIA. IT IS NOT EVERY DAY THAT I MEET A HOLY ONE LIKE MYSELF. THOUGH I DID NOT EXPECT TO MEET YOU IN THIS MANNER.
"Meridia? One of the Daedric Princes?" Celestia asked in a dangerous tone.
"FEAR NOT SUN GODDESS. I MEAN YOU NO HARM. MY SISTER HAS ALREADY SPOKEN WITH YOUR SISTER AND I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT THERE ARE THE FEW AMONG US WHO WISH YOU AND YOUR KIN NO ILL WILL. HOWEVER, I MUST ASK FOR YOUR....ASSISTANCE GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES"
"What kind of assistance if I might ask?"
A FOUL DARKNESS HAS SEEPED INTO MY TEMPLE. A DARKNESS THAT YOU MUST DESTROY. RETURN MY BEACON TO MOUNT KILKREATH AND I WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH ONE OF THE MEANS TO DEFEAT MY MAD BROTHER AS WELL AS GIVE YOU AN INSTRUMENT OF MY CLEANSING LIGHT. IF YOU SUCCEED, MY....RATHER VIOLENT AND UNCOUTH BROTHER JUST MIGHT BE WILLING TO ASSIST IN YOUR QUEST AS WELL."
"Your brother?"
"YES. THE MORTALS KNOW HIM AS KEEPER OF THE SWORN OATH AND THE BLOODY CURSE. HE HAS...SOMETHING OF AN INTEREST IN YOU. BUT FOR NOW, I MUST SAY FAREWELL PRINCESS CELESTIA OF EQUESTRIA. I LOOK FORWARD TO SPEAKING WITH YOU AGAIN."
"Alright, I will try to do everything I can to help if my quest takes me in the direction of your temple, Celestia replied"
Then as suddenly as it came, Meridia's voice went away, and Celestia's sight began to return.
...Only to find Katia's big yellow eyes only an inch away from her own.
"Aah!" Celestia exclaimed as she jumped back and shot a powerful beam of magic at Katia and send her flying into a rock.
It didn't take three seconds for Celestia to calm down before she realized the mistake she made.
"Katia!" she cried as she and Mila ran over to check on her.
"That was my fault....again," she groaned.
"Are you alright?"
"Please be okay Miss Katia," Mila said.
"I think I'm good. Just got the air knocked out of me."
"I'm so sorry. I didn't expect you to....what were you doing?," she asked genuinely curious.
"I was just trying to figure out why your eyes started glowing and why you were all zoned out," Katia wheezed out.
"....Perhaps we should bring Mila first before anything else happens," she replied. "Explanations can come later."
"Sure. Can you help me back up though? I think I'm seeing actual stars here."
With one hand, Celestia grabbed on to Katia's left hand and pulled her back on to her feet, allowing her to use her armored shoulder as a support to get back her sense of balance. Which she seemed to do after a few seconds.
"Do we have to go back through that scary cave Princess?" Mila asked while trembling.
"I'm afraid so sweetheart. But everything is alright. Katia and I are going to make sure you get through and back home safely. You can take my hand if you want," she said kindly.
"Alright," she simply replied as she tightly gripped Celestia's hand before walking with her and Katia through the cave and back towards the entrance.
"But when we have the chance again, I really need to know Katia. How in the world did you survive my magic blast? Even the most powerful dark mages have been disintegrated by my solar magic. You just seemed to....absorb it. Well, most of it at least."
Next Time: Chapter 13 - Coming Round the Mountain.
"Alright Ky'ell let's see if we can get this straight. You want to go into that cave and do what with a bear suit?" Luna asked while rubbing the bridge of her snout with her fingers
"We might as well use it for something fun! We're gonna be freezing in an hour here and I want to use it for something funny!"